The Next Best Thing, Kristan Higgins [Guest Review]

by Avid Reader on February 9, 2010

in Book Reviews, Grade C Reviews, Romance

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The Next Best Thing by Kris­tan Hig­gins (HQN 2010) is a paper­back, 400 pages, con­tem­po­rary romance. This review was writ­ten by fel­low reader, Senetra.

*****

Kris­tan Hig­gins’ The Next Best Thing fea­tures pas­try chef Lucy Lang Mirabelli, who has been wid­owed for almost five years. Her hus­band Jimmy, also a chef, died in a single-car acci­dent fol­low­ing a trade show, and she has been unable to eat her own desserts since then, instead fill­ing her need for sweets with Host­ess cup­cakes and Twinkies.

She has also never been able to visit his grave. With the birth of her niece, Lucy real­izes that she wants to have a fam­ily, but she doesn’t want to risk lov­ing and los­ing some­one again. This is mostly due to the women in Lucy’s fam­ily (her mother and three aunts) hav­ing a his­tory of becom­ing wid­ows at young ages. Corinne, Lucy’s sis­ter also lives in dread of join­ing their club, to the detri­ment of her marriage.

After mak­ing the deci­sion that she is ready to remarry, Lucy informs Ethan, her best friend, brother-in-law, and friend with ben­e­fits, that they can no longer sleep together and the rea­son why. Ethan has been her rock since Jimmy’s death, and Lucy val­ues his friend­ship. She spent her child­hood miss­ing her dad and wish­ing that her mother would remarry, and part of her hap­pi­ness with Jimmy came from being part of a fam­ily with a liv­ing father.

Fear of his death has her hold­ing Ethan at arm’s length and deny­ing her feel­ings for him. After some bad dates, and a pre­scrip­tion for anti-anxiety meds, Ethan con­vinces Lucy to try dat­ing him, but she wants their rela­tion­ship to remain a secret for a while.

The mixed reac­tions of their fam­ily and friends; the entrance of a Jimmy looka­like; and Lucy’s attempts to fig­ure out who she is now, and who she wants to be add to her stress. Some unwanted con­fronta­tions lead to rev­e­la­tions about Lucy, Jimmy, Ethan, and their rela­tion­ships that finally allow Lucy to move on.

This is the third Kris­tan Hig­gins book that I have tried, and the first one I have read from start to fin­ish. The other books started with a bang, then as the plot seemed to slow in the mid­dle, I lost inter­est. I can’t leave a book unread, so I skipped to the last few chap­ters to see how every­thing came out in the wash.

The premise really intrigued me, so I decided to try it, even though my pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ences with Hig­gins were not so great. When I started this book, I already knew that the hero­ine would tell her own story, have an ani­mal, and encounter a Mr. Could Be the Hero But Isn’t. What I didn’t expect with the emo­tion that I felt while reading.

I felt an almost over­whelm­ing sad­ness for all of the char­ac­ters: The Black Wid­ows who (hap­pily or not) clung to mem­o­ries of their dead hus­bands; Cap­tain Bob pin­ing for Daisy; Corinne’s fears for her hus­band; Gianni and Marie’s loss; and Lucy, Jimmy, and Ethan. They all seemed to be stuck in sit­u­a­tions that that they either could not, did not want, or know how to change.

This was a com­plete turn­around from what I remem­ber from the pre­vi­ous books I read, and I kept read­ing with­out skip­ping any parts because I needed to see how Lucy came to her HEA. This was hard going for me as a romance reader, and while I enjoyed most of the char­ac­ters, I can’t say that I really enjoyed their jour­ney. Grade: C+

For Fur­ther Reading

{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }

Avid Reader February 13, 2010 at 5:03 pm

@Bev Stephans: Thanks Bev. I will start with that one. Appre­ci­ate it.

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Bev Stephans February 13, 2010 at 1:46 am

@Keishon

Catch of the Day” is still her best one. If you have a back­list, I would start with that one. After “Catch”, you can read in any order as none are connected.

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Avid Reader February 10, 2010 at 1:41 pm

Looks like I’ll start with some of her ear­lier nov­els and save this one for last.

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Jane February 9, 2010 at 8:37 pm

I’m a big fan of Hig­gins and the “in-law” thing has never both­ered me. I do agree that the story is sad but I think what keeps it sad is that Lucy loves her sad­ness. It’s like she glo­ries in it. The con­stant watch­ing of her wed­ding video made the think that she enjoyed the pain that it brought her and the dat­ing of her dead husband’s ringer also seemed to feed that depres­sion she clung to.

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jmc February 9, 2010 at 6:51 pm

@Preeti: I don’t think of it as incest, but I do always won­der: does that char­ac­ter really want to be able to com­pare one brother to another in all ways? There’s lov­ing your inlaws and then *lov­ing* your inlaws…

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senetra February 9, 2010 at 2:49 pm

Jill D., I don’t mind the heroine’s jour­ney, or even the first per­son. I even avoid the dat­ing the sibling’s ex books (this book’s premise over­came that some­how). This book was just so sad and depress­ing, though. Now that I’ve thought about it for a few sec­onds, if you took off the romance label and ended it when she finally goes to visit the grave, it could almost be con­sid­ered lit­er­ary fiction.

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Preeti February 9, 2010 at 1:26 pm

@jmc: The more exag­ger­ated char­ac­ters in the book (heroine’s wacky aunts, her Ital­ian in-laws) do sqawk ‘incest’ and ‘ille­gal’ when they dis­cover rela­tion­ship. It’s played more for laughs, though.

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jmc February 9, 2010 at 12:04 pm

@Preeti: Oh, that just pushes one of my squick but­tons. Hig­gins seems to like doing that, pair­ing char­ac­ters with sib­lings of exes or past partners.

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Preeti February 9, 2010 at 11:13 am

@jmc: Yep: Ethan is younger brother of dead-husband Jimmy.

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jmc February 9, 2010 at 8:11 am

Ethan is her brother-in-law? Is he the brother of her sister’s hus­band? I’m hop­ing not the brother of her dead hus­band. The fam­ily dynam­ics in a cou­ple of Hig­gins’ books have both­ered me, and this would too. I think she’s just one of those writ­ers who does not suit me.

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Jill D. February 9, 2010 at 7:48 am

Hi Sen­e­tra! Wel­come aboard. I read Too Good to be True a cou­ple of months ago and really enjoyed it. I put this one on my wish list. Too bad that it seems to have a black cloud over the story. It still sounds inter­est­ing though.

It seems to me Hig­gins writes in the style of women’s lit than romance. To me it seems the books is more focused on the hero­ine and her jour­ney than the romance between the hero­ine and the hero. Not that that’s a bad thing. I like to take a break from romance and mix things up every now and again.

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willaful February 9, 2010 at 1:15 am

I’ve only read one Hig­gins book and also found it unex­pect­edly painful. A pow­er­ful writer in a sense, but not exactly what you’re led to expect.

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